These films often feature large casts of actors and multiple plotlines, focusing on the characters' attempts to avert, escape or cope with the disaster and its aftermath. The genre came to particular prominence during the 1970s with the release of high-profile films such as Airport (1970), followed in quick succession by The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Earthquake (1974) and The Towering Inferno (1974).[1]

The casts were generally made up of familiar character actors. Once the disaster begins in the film, the characters are usually confronted with human weaknesses, often falling in love and nearly almost always finding a villain to blame. The genre experienced a renewal in the 1990s boosted by Computer-generated imagery (CGI) and large studio budgets which allowed for more focus on the destruction, and less on the human drama, as seen in films like 1998's Armageddon and Deep Impact.[2] Nevertheless, the films usually feature a persevering hero or heroine (Charlton Heston, Steve McQueen, etc.) called upon to lead the struggle against the threat. In many cases, the 'evil' or 'selfish' individuals are the first to succumb to the conflagration.[3]

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Disaster themes are almost as old as the film medium itself. One of the earliest was Fire! (1901) made by James Williamson of England. The silent film portrayed a burning house and the firemen who arrive to quench the flames and rescue the inhabitants.[4] Origins of the genre can also be found in In Nacht und Eis (1912), about the sinking of the Titanic; Atlantis (1913), also about the Titanic; Noah's Ark (1928), the Biblical story from Genesis about the great flood; Deluge (1933), about tidal waves devastating New York City; King Kong (1933), with a gigantic gorilla rampaging through New York City; and The Last Days of Pompeii (1935), dealing with the Mount Vesuvius volcanic eruption in 79 AD.[5]

The trend reached its zenith in 1974 with the release of The Towering Inferno, Earthquake and Airport 1975 (the first Airport sequel). The competing films enjoyed staggering success at the box office, with The Towering Inferno earning $55 million, Earthquake $36 million and Airport 1975 $25 million.[12]

Earthquake was also honored with four Academy Award nominations for its impressive special effects of a massive earthquake leveling the city of Los Angeles, winning for Best Sound and receiving a Special Achievement Award for visual effects. The film was directed by Mark Robson and starred Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, Geneviève Bujold, George Kennedy and Lorne Greene. It was noted as the first film to utilize Sensurround, where massive sub-woofer speakers were installed in theaters to recreate the vibrating sensation of an earthquake.[14] Several made-for-TV movies also capitalized on the craze including Heatwave! (1974), The Day the Earth Moved (1974), Hurricane (1974), Flood! (1976) and Fire! (1977).[15][16][17][18][19]

The genre began to burn out by the late-1970s when the big-budget films The Swarm (1978), Meteor (1979) and When Time Ran Out... (1980) performed poorly at the box office signaling declining interest in the disaster film product.[20][21][22]

Although The Big Bus (1976), an earlier disaster film spoof, had failed to be a hit, the end of the trend was marked by the 1980 comedy Airplane! which fondly spoofed the clichés of the genre to surprising box office success, producing a sequel of its own, Airplane II: The Sequel, in 1982.[23]

The blockbuster hit Independence Day, which is about a hostile alien invasion of Earth, and the Poseidon Adventure-esque Daylight were released in 1996. That same year Twister was released, featuring a team of storm chasers studying a massive outbreak of tornadoes in the American Midwest. In 1997, two films about volcanic eruptions debuted, Volcano and Dante's Peak.

The revival continued in 1998 with the summer releases of the two comet/asteroid-impact films Deep Impact and Armageddon. The Perfect Storm was released in 2000, followed by The Core in 2003. The Day After Tomorrow did strong business in 2004, depicting rapid global warming and climate change with a varied assortment of disasters. In 2005, the genre went back to Poseidon, a 2006 remake of The Poseidon Adventure, which largely did not connect with both audiences and critics alike, despite its large global box office performance. In 2007 Sunshine was released, depicting a group of astronauts' attempt to restart a dying sun.

The genre continued with three high-profile films, 2009's $200-million budget 2012, which portrayed a series of global natural disasters as supposedly prophesied by the 2012 doomsday prediction, 2011's Contagion, which looked at a mysterious pandemic befalling the globe, and 2013's Sharknado, which dealt with a large storm that resulted in a number of sharks being caught in a tornado.